St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-04-02
WILD AND ROMANTIC.
The Scenery in the Black Hills Strange,
Eccentric, Picturesque and
Grand.
Bear Lodge. Unique and Mysterious, Com.
posed of Thousands Of Unbroken
Prisms.
The Hot Springs Great Curiosity.
The Mountain Parks Remark
ably BE utiful.
The Black Hills Branch of the North
western at Rapid
City.

Special Correspondence OF the Globe.
DEADwoOD, OAK, March 3O.-In the
volumes that have been written about the
Black Hills do not remember to have seen
any adequate mention of their scenery.
Their mineral timber and agricultural re-
sources, and the enterprise and imaginative
resources of the people in advertising the
country are not more remarkable than the
scenery of this strange geological upheaval;
and | believe the time is coming, when rail-
roads penetrate the hills and the irrepressi-
Die G. P. A. gets onto their beauties, that
they will be thronged with sight seers. Such
will find more than the ordinary mountain
and ravine scenery, of which there is no
lack in this land. These wild and romantic
features have charms all their own. as will
appear. The granite in which HarneyS
peak and the core Of the up-turn is COM
posed is of a peculiar constitution; coarse.
hard and friabe 1t exists in immense
bodies of large crystals, whence one geolo-
gist christened it 'Cyclopean granite" 1t
disintegrates freely and 'weathers" in fan
tastc shapes. The singular sharp cliffs
around Harney's peak, called variously
1.-The Sawteeth" and 1.-The Fingers" and
the eccentric granite dykes scattered through
the central hills are illustrations of this
rugged formation.
MATO TEPEE.
Still more singular and impressive forma-
tons are to be found in the volcanic rocks
of the Northern Hills. Bear Butte, an
isolated boulder rising abruptly from the
prairie near Fort Meade, and Bear Lodge
(Nlato Tepee. of the Indans), are of this
ilk. The latter is said by biologists to be
wi in hoS oIt cfnlIi
ton. 1t is natural ObeliSk rising sheer
1000 feet above the banks of the Belle
Fourche; is 800 feet in diameter at the base,
| tapering in a graceful convex to diameter
of 375 feet at the top. 1t is composed of
thousands of priSms that extend unbroken
from base to summit. This continuity of
the crystals is the remarkable feature Of
| the mass, the tendency of trappe rock being
to fracture transversely in crystallZing and
weather away to the appearance of stairs
whence the name, ''trappe," a stair-aS in
Giants Causeway, Ireland. Prof. Newton
says: Bear Lodge, i'll its shape and struc-
ture, appears not to have been repeated
elsewhere by nature, but stands alone,
unique and mysterious. 1t occupies the
space OF a chimney to some subterranean
! furnace. which Overf1OWed with molten
rock and cooling, cryStalliZed downward
The surrounding walls of the chimney
eroded and left this mighty monument to
| the working of crystallization, that power
scarcely less mysterious than the force Of
life itself No one has ever set foot OH the
top of this monument, and | wonder that
no foolhardy Yankee has ever repeated the
achievement of the British sailors who
scaled Pompey's Pillar, Egypt, and had a
grand spree. The party that first holds a
Fourth of July celebration on top of
! Bear Lodge will be immortalized in local
] history. One of these days some one will
| fence it in, construct stairway to the top
and get rich on the gate money!.
THE HOT SPRINGS,
in Fall River county. where Representative,
and Doctor Stewart and associates are build
ing up sanitarium is a greater curiosity than
! Misunderstanding all that its owners claim
| for it in the latter respect. Here Fall river
! jumps out of the ground like Jack-in- the.
box. mot at having been confined too long.
Aside from the Spontaniety of this sudden
and bad-smelling apparition. and the TO-
mantle scenery up and down the valley to
the falls of the river, there are phenomena
to attract the naturalist and novelty hunter.
| The warm waters generate vegetable life
rapidly, and the springs being differently
impregnated chemically Gas at Manitous
SOl. J, each SS0lllS W have DCCOilic tuG IdU-
itat of different variety of algse.
THE MOUNTAIN PARKS.
But the feature that shall some day be
more admired than all sports Of nature is
! the beautiful mountain parks. These are
smooth, grassy, flowery, treeiess stretches
of acres or miles in area, hedged in or
broken I'D by Lodges, crags and dykes all
covered with pines. OF terminating abruptly
in gloomy gorges and deep canyons, with
water features interSperSed ''tO the queens
taste.' The contrasts between the sublime
| and the beautiful heighten the effect of
| each and work OH the aesthetic sense won
derfully-if the spectator has any aesthetic
sense and isn't too hungry, which is quite
apt to be the case under present facilities
for travel. When the projected narrow
guage railroad from Rapid City to Custer is
completed-mind. l say when!-it will be
one of the most famous scenic routes in the
country. In 4 word, the Black Hills are a
gigantic curiosity shop and dime museum
| where the geologist. sight-seer, health
seeker, wealth-seeker. landscape artist and
| student of freaks, physical and human. can
see bigger show for less money than under
any other canopy.
RAILROAD TALK.
| Speaking of railroads ''when," there
seems to be better prospects now for the
much promised and more predicted extern
| sion of the Black Hills branch of the North
western system through the Northern Hills.
| The contractors. subcOntractOrS and bridge
engineer of the company are out on the sur
vey between this place and Rapid City talk
ing and acting as if they intended to begin
work soon. The invisible finger boards of
the work point towards the coal fields Oil
regions and cattle ranges of Wyoming by
| the straightest line. The passage by con-
gress OF the act granting the right OF way
across Ft. Meade military reservation has
made this extension possible only now. 1t
looks as if the Northwestern would win in
| the race for the trade of the Northern Hills
and Wyoming. A new
NARROW GAUGE PROJECT
has been sprung Oh the unsuspecting Hills
within a few days. E. 3. Chapman, of
Omaha. Rapid City parties and, it is said,
strong capitalists, are nursing this young
ster. 1t proposes to build from Rapid City
westward, directly into the heart of the
Hills, about so miles to the present eastern
terminus of the Black Hills and Ft. Pierre
railroad which is the high sounding name OF
a high-living little road built across the
mountains to supply the Homestake mines
and mills with wood and timber The COM
pleted connection would,bringRapidCity into
communication with Lead City, vigorous
mining town three miles from this place and
| possibly let DeadwOOd out to the world by
its back door first IL will lie for so miles
through heavy virgin timber and the richest
mineral section of the Hills, giving it traffic
of machinery and supplies in and lumber
and ores out. There are also fresh and ear
nest-almost too earnest to be imaginary
reports of early resumption of work on the
Rapid City and Southwestern narrow gauge.
| Ilnnn the Survey and drafts of which